Re: spam in official comment lists

<michael_key>
David Carlisle:
"the xml-query-comment archives show it is almost all spam and no discussion
occurs on that list at all (who'd want to subscribe to that much extra
junk) The _only_ time any discussion happens is if the messages are
cross posted to a more sensible list (xml-dev or xsl-list)."

"It was very noticeable with the earlier functions and operators draft
last year that messages sent to the comment address produced no response
at all, only when later the message was re-sent (rather than cross
posted) to this list did (quite helpful) feedback come from the document
editors."

Jeni Tennison:
"I think we should move the discussion to xsl-editors@w3.org or
www-xpath-comments@w3.org instead, since these are both open to
subscribers. As well as getting the comments archived, and hopefully
actually read by more of the members of the WG, it would save all the
poor people on this list from having the discussion cluttering their
mailbox."

"I'm sure we can discuss the F&O and data model drafts on
www-xpath-comments@w3.org and cross-post to
www-xml-query-comments@w3.org, at least until Max tells us off for
that ;)"

Could I suggest that the xml-query-comments list is managed the same
way as xsl-editors and xpath-comments:

* Allow people to subscribe
* Postings from non-subscribers are moderated to remove spam
* All contributions receive an immediate acknowledgement
* WG members take the initiative to produce unofficial-but-timely responses
to the technical points made, e.g. informing contributors whether the idea
has previously been discussed by the WG and what the difficulties are likely
to be. Generally I try to avoid getting into debate on these lists,but I do
try to give feedback, telling people whether they've spotted a hole in
the
spec, whether they're pushing an option that we've already rejected, or
whether they're asking for a feature that's beyond the agreed requirements.
</michael_key>


David, Mike et al, the spam problem in www-xml-query-comments has been
discussed a lot (and, already from the very beginning of spam
cluttering), and if so far nothing happened this is just due to
technical limitations to modify the current status quo.
Anyway, the above discussions show imprecise knowledge of the current
status of W3C's mailing list, so let me recap and quote from 
http://www.w3.org/Mail/Lists.html
(alternatively, same info in http://www.w3.org/XML/Query ):

www-xml-query-comments:
<quote> 
This is the publicly-archived mailing list for reporting comments and
errors about the XML-Query specifications. It is NOT a discussion
forum (use www-ql instead), and so while you can look at archives of
this mailing list, you can not subscribe to this mailing list. 
</quote>

www-ql:
<quote>
The public list for discussion on Query Languages, including (but not
limited to) discussion on the XML-Query project. This list is
spam-protected, which means that before posting to it, you must
subscribe to it. Everybody can subscribe. 
</quote>

Therefore, no discussion should happen on www-xml-query-comments, and
the "spam-free" list for discussion has always been there: www-ql. 

Incidentally, let me remark the anomaly of www-xpath-comments here
(and why the problem isn't this easy to solve): "comments" lists
should NOT be subscribe-only, because historically this was 
not felt to be a good solution: if you want to send a comment/typo etc
on a spec, you just send email to the feedback list; you shouldn't
*force* the user to subscribe to anything (besides, there's no 
discussion that is supposed to go on there...). The comments lists are
meant to be a single-to-wg way to communicate on specific problems in
the spec, but by any means not a discussion forum.
The fact www-xpath-comments@w3.org is subscribe-only is to my eyes a
violation of this principle if this is used as a spec-comment list,
even more if in http://www.w3.org/Mail/Lists.html 
it is listed under "Discussion and WG Mailing Lists" and not under 
"Mailing lists for comments and error reports on specifications".
Note, www-xpath-comments is the only "*-comments" list that's actually
in this condition (...).

Said this, the planned "fast track" solution we are investigating is
to have a moderator that manually does the junk-filter, this way
accomplishing the two goals of 
a) keeping the list open-post to everybody, and
b) avoiding spam

En passant, note this also partly clarifies the "joint comments list"
problem: it is no big deal to have a separate comments list for each spec you
have. Then, people can move their discussions to the appropriate
subscribe-only fora (and cross-post in those hybrid cases... ;)

Feel free to forward these clarifications to any channel/mailing list
you might find appropriate, thanks.
-Massimo

ps
Regarding the "immediate acknowledgement", the proposal was raised but
then rejected because felt as not very useful after all. On the other
hand, the "WG members take the initiative to produce
unofficial-but-timely responses to the technical points made" has been
proposed and should in fact be an endorsed remedy :)

Received on Tuesday, 8 January 2002 07:16:16 UTC